1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to a convection oven with an automatic hard-wood smoke generator. More specifically, the invention relates to an improved smoke generator employing a heated block of hard-wood wherein the surface char on the hard-wood is periodically removed by scraping.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art:
The basic concept of generating smoke from hard-wood chips or sawdust during the cooking of meat, fish and the like is generally known and commercially practiced in the food industry. Generally, wood chips and/or sawdust with or without presoaking in water are heated or maintained at a temperature and condition just below the ignition or kindling temperature such that the wood smolders and generates smoke without igniting into a flame. The smoke generated in this manner is then circulated or comingled with the food such as to impart a barbecue smoke flavoring. In the past, either sawdust or small wood chips have been preferably employed since the use of larger blocks of wood result in difficulties in maintaining a continuous production of a uniform and large quantity of smoke. This in part can be attributed to the fact that the char and ash build-up at the surface of the smoldering hard-wood block protects and insulates the inner portion of the wood block, thus inhibiting the continued production of smoke. Agitation of the wood and various methods of controlling the rate of heat transferred to the wood have been historically proposed to overcome these problems, but with little success. To the best knowledge of the present Inventor, prior to the present invention, no one has successfully been able to maintain high volumes of continuous smoke generation for use in a compact convection oven while employing a block of hard-wood rather than sawdust or wood chips.